5,000 illegal crossings in a single month. Cartels running smuggling routes like shipping networks. And now, the border wall is rising again in South Texas. Reporter Anna Giaritelli breaks down what’s really happening in the Rio Grande Valley—and why this hotspot has always been the center of America’s immigration battle.

In this episode of Breaking Battlegrounds, Washington Examiner reporter Anna Giaritelli dives into her latest reporting on the Trump administration’s renewed push to build the border wall in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas—a region long considered ground zero for illegal crossings.

Anna explains why construction is moving faster than before, how funds originally approved during Trump’s first term are fueling the projects, and why public pushback has been far more muted this time. She also gives a clear geography lesson on the Rio Grande, showing why its location makes it the top entry point for migrants from Central America.

From cartel-controlled smuggling networks to the sheer logistics of migration, Anna reveals how the Rio Grande Valley became—and remains—the most heavily trafficked section of the U.S.–Mexico border. If you want to understand not just the politics, but the mechanics of America’s immigration fight, this conversation is essential listening.

Transcripts

**Sam Stone: **Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds continuing on with Anna Giaritelli, friend of the program and Washington Examiner reporter. She has a great piece out. We've covered, well, frankly, a bunch of great pieces she's done. But this was another one Trump administration begins building border wall in Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Obviously, I think a lot of people know, Chuck, that the Rio Grande Valley was maybe the hot, hot spot or hottest spot for immigration under Biden. Anna, what has been the reaction of officials and residents in that area to this know, you know, beginning of this construction.

**Anna Giaritelli: **You know what we're not seeing any big reaction so far you know and and this now make a hundred miles that the Trump administration is starting construction on since he took office in January. Thats a considerably faster-paced than in the first administration until about a year and a half start walk construction. So they're really quickly ramping up and they're using money from President Trump's first term in office.

Money that was funded by Congress for some of these projects and able to get it really start now. They they know the contractors and they know how to get in place so in a way it's hard to protest that because you know this has already been confirmed this is a number of years old and really it's just the old construction is getting going again not just in Texas but in New Mexico, Arizona, and California as well.

**Chuck Warren: **So give our audience a little geography lesson on the Rio Grande. So in August, it was reported that federal agents encountered 5,000 illegal crossings at the Rio Grande. Why is this a popular spot regarding our southern border? What makes it prone to have a wave of people?

**Anna Giaritelli: **The Rio Grande Valley is the southern tip of the United States next to Mexico. And so for someone who's coming from Guatemala, which is the southern neighbor of Mexico, it's going to be half the distance to go from Guatemala to the Rio Grande Valley of Texas than if they went all the way out to California, which is about a 2000 mile journey if they go the longest. And so for years and years, we've seen that route chosen because of that and the Cartels that smuggle people.

There's various Cartels they're working with different parts of of their you know organizations in Mexico as well as those people at the actual U.S. Mexico border that the final people to move people across the river. So they're working with their associates so you know it it would be like if I said you I need to get this package to California from New york but I can only use people I know. So I have a friend in Pennsylvania who can take it part of the way and then this way until you're going through a certain route where you have associates to move people through that way.

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